Early medieval art: c. 500-800 C.E.

In the fifth century C.E., people from tribes called Angles, Saxons and Jutes left their homelands in northern Europe to look for a new home. They knew that the Romans had recently left the green land of Britain unguarded, so they sailed across the channel in small wooden boats. The Britons did not give in without a fight, but after many years the invaders managed to overcome them and were to rule for over 500 years.

Excavated in 1939, this 7th-century grave once held a hoard of metalwork, all buried within a 27-meter long ship!